By Any Other
by eight percent
Summary: Post IOTH one shot.


A/N I started this years ago but never got round to finishing it until now. There were plenty of loose ends when the show ended but MP's first name always intrigued me so…

By Any Other

There could only be one person on the other end of the phone that was quietly vibrating in her pocket: Jarod. It wasn't instinct or even her 'inner sense' - that she struggled to control - that drove her to that conclusion. It was the realisation, and perhaps more truthfully acceptance, of the fact that the man she had chased for nearly five years with the sole purpose of depriving him of his freedom was now the only real certainty left in her life. Everything else that she had once cherished had either been ripped away from her or so distorted by both truth and lies that it could no longer be relied upon. A small frown settled on her lips at the thought that her situation could only be more tragic if she had no-one at all but she suspected that Jarod would never let that happen. She'd pointed a gun in the man's face on more than one occasion, and had even taken a few shots at him, but he just kept coming back for more. Whether that was because Jarod was just an annoying do-gooder or he thought he could get his answers through her or he genuinely did care about her, she wasn't sure. She wasn't sure she really wanted to know the answer to that particular puzzle either; more than one of the solutions she'd hypothesised would throw her world into turmoil and she'd had more than her fair share of that lately.

Reaching deep into the pocket of her long coat she retrieved the still vibrating phone. Instinct, honed by years of Centre training, urged her to scan her surroundings but there seemed little point; even if Jarod was nearby, if he had watched the proceedings from afar and then waited until the mourners and sweepers and Centre employees had departed before calling her, she doubted that she'd be able to locate him. This part of the cemetery was secluded, with trees lining almost every direction, so there was plenty of cover for a missing pretender to utilise but, and perhaps more pertinently, the number of times she had laid eyes on Jarod without his consent were few and far between. The clues he left to his location were usually so well timed that she'd be days - if not weeks - behind him and he rarely came to her. Besides, if she spied him she'd have to respond and her only options in that respect were to chase him or to let him go, both of which held their own special set of consequences. Or maybe they'd both lead her to the same end; if those damned scrolls were real then her end had been determined a long time ago and nothing - or anything - she did now could ever change that.

Tapping the answer button on the phone she uttered a rather quiet and weak sounding, "What?" She couldn't summon even the desire to sound like the Miss Parker of old, the woman who had chased down every single lead on Jarod with little thought of their shared past, of her father lying to her, of her mother deceiving her, of the Centre hierarchy plotting and scheming behind her back. Even the weary Miss Parker, the woman of not so long ago who'd sought to find the truth about her mother's death and the depth of her father's affections, who had been willing to use Jarod and his pursuit for her own means, seemed far from her grasp today. If Jarod chose to comment on her tone then she'd blame the circumstances of the day. He might even believe her. Or maybe he'd just pretend that he believed her and, like her, try to ignore the fact that something had shifted between them. And something had changed in her; something had changed for her.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Miss Parker."

The cold air had long since crept into her bones, leaving her almost completely numb, but his voice felt like a warm blanket. She tried to shrug it off, to hold on to the last traces of the persona that her short skirt and killer heels suggested; they weren't exactly suitable attire for a funeral being held on a frosty Winter's morning but _her_ presence had been requested. And the Ice Queen was one hell of a presence; it kept people - most people, anyway - at a distance, with the added bonus of obedience, albeit earned through fear. Most of all though, it was a mask for her to hide behind, to be someone other than the scared little girl who'd lost her mother; a little girl who'd wanted to please the only parent she had left. Her feelings concerning Mr Parker now were so churned up that she hadn't wanted to attend the funeral - in any guise - but Raines had insisted upon it, had made the repercussions quite clear if she didn't play her part in this charade and, like her appearance, that's all today was: yet another Centre lie to compound all the others.

There wasn't, and probably never would be, a body to bury. Mr Parker had thrown himself out of an airplane and into the keeping of the deep unforgiving sea. The funeral was just a way for Raines to stamp his own authority on the Centre; out with the old and in with the new. Only, as far as she was concerned, there hadn't been much change. She still worked at the Centre and with all that entailed; chasing Jarod with Sydney and Broots, and hoping that Lyle didn't beat her to the finish line. The threat to her life if her twin won - and vice versa - was, admittedly, a new twist and one that only Raines could provide but in her darker moments of contemplation she found herself wondering if it hadn't, in some shape or form, always been the case. Jarod had told her that she was as much a prisoner of the Centre as he and maybe he was right. There'd never been any question of her not working at the Centre once her education had been completed and the one time she had strayed from that path, had made plans to begin a different life, the Centre had taken it, and him, away from her. Even now - especially now - she couldn't be sure that Mr Parker would've honoured their agreement and let her leave. Or let her live.

She inhaled sharply, searching for a strength that didn't come from the warmth of Jarod's voice or the concern of his words but found herself drawing a blank. Others might have said that the Ice Queen was starting to melt but she knew better; she'd thawed out a long time ago. And there seemed little point in pretending otherwise with Jarod. Raines, Lyle, Broots and maybe even Sydney - though she had her doubts about the good doctor - might still buy her act but the Pretender would not. He never really had. "Are you?" she said finally. "I'd have thought you'd be happy to see the back of him."

A small sigh made its way to her ear, heating the skin that lay there before whispering its way inside, into her heart and her soul. "I can't be happy about something that makes you so sad."

Blinking slowly at his words, one fat tear that she had been holding back all day finally fought its way free. It trailed a cold path down her already icy skin and she didn't bother to brush it away, letting it drop from her face and to the ground below instead. He did care; he still cared. It didn't come as too much of a surprise; he'd made his feelings for her quite clear both in front of Ocee's fireplace and in the limo on Carthis, and she hadn't really expected them - or him - to change, despite her plea for him to forget what had happened, to forget what had almost happened. She'd just been trying to ignore it, along with her own feelings for him. She knew that if they hadn't been interrupted she would have kissed Jarod that night on the island. The dreams that had filled her nights since her return to the States suggested that things would have gone even further than that. Almost every morning she'd have to remind herself that it probably wouldn't have turned out so well, for either of them, had she and Jarod done more than just locate the scrolls when they were in Scotland. But it was hard to deny the emotional closeness that had grown between them; most days she didn't even try.

"I'm not sure if it's because he's gone or because he took any answers he may have had with him to the bottom of the ocean," she found herself admitting. When Sydney had offered her an ear she'd told him it was the last thing she needed but he wasn't Jarod. Sydney hadn't been there on that island when she and Jarod had uncovered horrible truths together, hadn't been there for many of the horrific things that Jarod had revealed over the years. She managed to stop herself from telling Jarod that the real reason she felt sad at Mr Parker's passing was because she'd spent the last quarter of a century trying to please her father and all she'd received in return was lies, deceit and manipulation. He probably knew anyway.

"Maybe it's both."

"Maybe," she agreed quietly. She toyed with the idea of ending the call there, of making a biting comment about family before hanging up on him. But instead she carried on talking, "Either way, I'm still left wondering who I am and on which twisted branch of the Parker family tree I sit."

"You're more than just a Parker."

There could be only one direction Jarod was leading the conversation towards and she wasn't sure she had the energy to go there. Not again. They'd already discussed it, a few times now, and her opinion hadn't altered: "I'm not her, Jarod." It wasn't that she hated her mother; years of believing that Catherine Parker had committed suicide had never diminished the love she felt for the one parent who had gladly and openly reciprocated those feelings. The harsh truth was that she didn't want to end up like her mother: dead. Chewed up and spat out by the Centre and the men who ran it. She didn't need her inner sense to tell her that she could very well end up mirroring her mother's demise if she didn't do something; if she didn't change the ending; if she didn't get the hell away from the Centre and Raines' twisted games.

Jarod sighed again. "You're not your father, either."

A snort of disgust escaped her at that pronouncement. Chances were that, genetically at least, she most definitely was not like her father. For all of his faults - and it turned out there'd been quite a few of them - she found herself wishing that Mr Parker was her father because the alternative was Raines. And even if Raines wasn't her real father he would still be her uncle. There was no escaping the Parker blood that run through her veins. "If I'm not her and I'm not him, it doesn't leave very much, Jarod."

"It leaves everything," he disagreed quickly. "It leaves you, Jamieson."

She gasped loudly at the use of her name. It'd been so long since someone had addressed that way that it was like a jolt to her system. Her mother had always used it, almost as much as the terms of affection that had peppered their interactions; she was sure that her mother had given her the name - her own maiden name - because her father had never once used it. Mr Parker had always been keen to emphasise that she was a Parker, first and foremost, his daughter second of all and his Angel lastly and only when the first two failed to have the desired effect on her; when she'd discovered that she'd had a twin who'd - supposedly - died at birth she'd wondered if Catherine Parker had been left to name her daughter whilst her husband had mourned the loss of their son.

Nobody else had ever uttered her name out loud. Her teachers, the few friends she'd made over the years, and even her lovers had all addressed her as Parker. Not even Jarod, with whom she had shared the secret of her first name decades ago, had ever spoken it out loud; not as children as they'd explored the bowels of the Centre, nor as adults as they'd teased and taunted each other from one end of the country to the other. That was how she'd wanted it but she realised now that it was really how her father had wanted it. And he'd uttered it now because he knew something had changed. He knew she had changed.

"Jamieson."

This time it didn't come down the line because he was behind her. He was here. He was here for her. Just like he always was. If she responded to her name, if she turned around, she could change the ending. Or maybe it would just be the ending that the scrolls had predicted. She dropped her arm, the phone hanging limply in her hand as her mind turned over the possibilities. If she turned around she could be someone else; not Miss Parker or the Ice Queen or the Chairman's daughter. She could be Jamieson.

Taking in a deep breath, she made her decision.


End file.
